Dr Dorothy Cooke-Johnson was yesterday remembered as a woman who lived life fully, unselfishly and offering hope to the hopeless.
Dr Dorothy Cooke-Johnson (GP)
Her son Christopher Cooke-Johnson told mourners gathered at St Peter’s Parish Church for the service of celebration and thanksgiving of her life and those watching the live stream, that apart from being his mother and supporter he was most awed by “the role she played in other people’s lives, often privately and quietly”.
Dorothy, who was born in England on May 29, 1941, and educated there, taught biology at Queen’s College upon arriving in Barbados in August 1964, at the age of 23.
She met his father Peter Johnson here and they were married on August 23, 1969 and while his mother took his father’s surname, his father also took his mother’s surname.
“Just to give you some idea this was 50 years ago in terms of gender equality. Around the world women were arguing for equal pay and equal opportunity; my mother was going a step further,” said Christopher.
Halfway through her pregnancy in 1976, her husband was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer and, said Christopher, he “endured an onslaught of chemotherapy to stay alive just long enough to see me come into this world”, dying three weeks later and buried in St Peter’s Parish Churchyard “exactly 45 years and 11 months ago”. (GBM)
A section of the congregation attending the funeral of Dorothy Cooke-Johnson at St Peter’s Parish Church. (Picture by Reco Moore.)